Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 9, 2026

Novel Techniques for Observing Structural Dynamics of Photoresponsive Liquid Crystals
Published on: May 29, 2018
Light-induced chaotic rotations in nematic liquid crystals
1Laboratoire de Physique UMR 5672, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 Allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon Cedex 07, France.
Abstract:
Various nonlinear rotation regimes are observed in an optically excited nematic liquid-crystal film under boundary conditions (for the light and material) that are invariant by rotation. The excitation light is circularly polarized, the intensity profile is circularly symmetric, and the beam diameter at the sample location is a few times smaller than the cell thickness. A transition to chaos via quasiperiodicity is identified when the light intensity is taken as the control parameter. Transverse nonlocal effects are suggested to be the cause of the observed dynamics, and a simple model consisting of a collection of coupled rotators is developed to provide a qualitative explanation.
Related Concept Videos
Fluid Mosaic Model
Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity
¹H NMR of Conformationally Flexible Molecules: Temporal Resolution

